While the iPhone will be the immediate beneficiary of an anticipated deal between Apple and China Mobile, the agreement also makes it more likely that compatible versions of Apple's iPad lineup will make their way to the world's largest carrier in the near future, further boosting sales.

Market watchers are particularly excited about claims that Apple has inked an agreement with China Mobile, because they see it providing a significant boost to the company's iPhone sales. The carrier boasts a massive 759 million subscribers, making it by far the largest wireless provider on the planet.

Count analyst Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank among those who have high hopes for the iPhone launch on China Mobile — a partner that he referred to as the "Big Kahuna." He sees Apple selling as many as 20 million iPhones through the carrier in the first year, adding around $4 in incremental earnings per share.

But Whitmore also noted that an iPad launch through China Mobile would be a "logical next step" for Apple after the iPhone debut has concluded.

A delay between the introduction of the iPhone and cellular-capable iPad models on a carrier is not new. For example, Sprint began selling the iPhone in late 2011, but didn't offer LTE equipped iPads until a year later, while rivals AT&T and Verizon offered the third-generation iPad with LTE in mid-2012.

A timetable for a potential iPad launch on China Mobile is unknown. Accordingly, Whitmore's iPad predictions for calendar 2014 don't include any incremental sales from such a partnership.

However, the analyst sees further growth of the iPhone and iPad platforms continuing in the near future, and pushing shares of AAPL stock higher. In particular, he sees Apple expanding its iPhone and iPad lineups with larger screen sizes, and also adding new carrier partners to continue to expand availability of its best selling products.

So with the two top tier iPhones having compatibility to the CM proprietary LTE network CM has spent untold billions establishing China Mobile won't be offering the iPhone officially?

That's unlikely in the extreme. Odds are China Mobile, to give as big a thump to their competitors as possible, has lined up a simultaneous announcement to tout their big expensive investment in the new network. The timing is a big deal to CM, not anything to Apple, so why not have Apple cooperate with a big customer? Then they both make money.

If the asset management in Cupertino does not change, and they continue to hoard cash, like they grew up during the depression, this event is not that important. Cook has no financial training or background
And based on Oppenheimer's stewardship, it is hard to be optimistic. And your major competitor who has been convicted by a Korean judge of violating patent law is a major supplier. We have to hope that the stockholders will cause management to leverage their earnings properly. At least Icahn , as an investor, put a spotlight on the reality. And Al Gore has 30 million dollars of stock as a director

If the asset management in Cupertino does not change, and they continue to hoard cash, like they grew up during the depression, this event is not that important. Cook has no financial training or background
And based on Oppenheimer's stewardship, it is hard to be optimistic. And your major competitor who has been convicted by a Korean judge of violating patent law is a major supplier. We have to hope that the stockholders will cause management to leverage their earnings properly. At least Icahn , as an investor, put a spotlight on the reality. And Al Gore has 30 million dollars of stock as a director

Neither their board of directors nor shareholders are overly concerned. I'm not concerned. Better for Apple to have that ace up their sleeve for when they need it. Are you old enough to remember when Steve Jobs had to go begging to Microsoft? Those were dark times.

Now that we know the deal is off we get to see the true colors of analysts, reporters, AI, the lot. Sad.

Your comment is vague. Explain.

The WSJ writes that there is a contract between Apple and China Mobile, boom, all sites, blogs, newspapers copy this info. Then they all take it one step further to write that after CM has the iPhone a contract for the iPad is imminent. A few days later we read that there isn't any contract, as far as anyone knows, and no rectification.

Rectifications or not, I just think it's stupid of websites predicting there is a deal for the iPad while there wasn't any confirmation on the iPhone deal.

I do think the analysts were right in predicting a so and so much revenue from CM if Apple had such and such percentage of CM customers. That can be 'predicted', as long as there is a contract. But Munster didn't write that, he merely stated Apple could add so much revenue from CM.